On Monday, Aug. 20, the Swedish-based Global Happiness Organization will launch its operations in North Carolina. It is its latest step towards becoming a world-wide organization.

The company will begin by handing out $5 bills to random people on the streets of Carrboro at 6 p.m.; one which they should spend on themselves and one which they should spendon somebody else.

“We want people to realize that giving to someone else actually increases your well-being more than buying things for yourself”, said James Evans, President of GHO U.S.
The North Carolina branch will initially focus on defining a happiness agenda—which will focus on well-being in the richest sense of the term—to educate both the public and policymakers alike.

“There is a huge opportunity to achieve success in North Carolina and in the U.S.," Ludvig Lindström, president of GHO, said. "A few years ago, President Barack Obama nominated political economist and happiness researcher Alan B. Krueger as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. Senior officials, including Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, have remarked that the promotion of well-being is the ultimate objective of our policy decisions."

James Evans said, “We will concentrate on trying to inform public policy through the use of scientific research into happiness. We will also try to get the government to complement GDP with an additional happiness index that will continually measure citizens’ subjective well-being.”